It’s the oldest joke about the American conservative movement: “What do you call the one black guy at CPAC? The keynote speaker.” Every year, the Conservative Political Action Conference (sponsored by the American Conservative Union) tries to show it is not racist by propping up token non-whites to speak about “leaving the Democrat plantation” to vote Republican. Every year, CPAC bans race realists even from the audience, presumably so reporters won’t call the conference “racist.” Every year, liberal reporters go to CPAC, take pictures of eccentric people, and write insulting articles anyway. CPAC never learns.

This year, the farce is especially rich. CPAC’s 2021 theme is “America Uncancelled.” “So You’ve Been De-Platformed. What Now?” asks one panel. There’s another called “The Left’s Assault on a Free People: How Government, Big Tech, and Media Are Colluding to Deprive Us of Our Humanity.” Senator Ted Cruz will talk about “cancel culture.”

In my view, “cancel culture” is not criticizing, primarying, or voting against politicians. It is when powerful institutions fire or deny services or platforms to people, often because a vocal minority demands it. Antifa often take credit for “cancellations” but their efforts would mean nothing if they were not publicized. Journalists are therefore the true commissars of cancel culture. Anything they ignore has no impact.

Republicans, especially Trump supporters, understand the problem. A recent poll from Echelon Insights found that GOP voters thought “liberal bias in the mainstream media” was one of the country’s most important problems. Seventy-five percent of Republicans were “extremely” or “very” concerned about it; Donald Trump voters even more so.

If a politician or activist group wants to win the Republican base, the best course is to defy the media. We’ll see if CPAC’s sponsors and organizers have learned their lesson. I expect not. Antifa-supporting journalists will soon be boasting about getting CPAC media credentials.

However, CPAC has a deeper problem than naiveté about the media. Conservatives won’t talk about race. I have been in meetings in which sponsors debated the CPAC agenda. Once, I asked about putting on a panel on immigration, demographics, and the Republican Party’s future. This somehow became a panel on how Republicans can win the Hispanic vote. Defending white interests or opposing the great replacement are unthinkable to movement conservatives.

It truly bothers conservatives that their supporters are mostly white. At the same time, they are patronizing to non-white conservatives, and “outreach” often makes things worse. Race realists don’t tip-toe around race. We understand that race doesn’t entirely define a person, but we know that racial consciousness is part of everyone’s identity. This makes it easier to get along with non-whites, including non-white conservatives. We don’t talk to non-whites as if they were small pets.

Movement conservatives hate white consciousness, but fall all over themselves pandering to non-white conservatives. They support them because they aren’t white, and the condescension bleeds through. They claim to oppose identity politics but practice it in the most ineffective way possible. Pardoning rappers or reminding people about Southern Democrats in the 1860s isn’t going to win black voters. It probably offends many of them.

The conservative movement promotes blacks such as Mia Love, Tim Scott, or J.C. Watts far more than their accomplishments would merit. This looks phony and it backfires when onetime Republican leaders such as former GOP chairman Michael Steele or General Colin Powell later criticize the party for not doing enough for blacks.

GOP Chairman Michael Steele speaks during the Republican National Convention in 2008. (Harry E. Walker / MCT) (Credit Image: © Harry E. Walker / MCT / ZUMAPRESS.com)

Blacks don’t need whites’ permission to “leave the Democratic plantation,” or slick videos about blacks praising capitalism. Blacks, like whites, mostly vote for whomever represents their interests. The Democrats offer blacks affirmative action, more government spending, and incessant coddling. GOP support for “limited government” can hardly compete. Blacks aren’t acting illogically by voting for Democrats. If anything, whites are acting illogically by letting Republicans take us for granted.

Race realists would probably be better at winning non-white voters than Republican strategists. We would at least avoid disasters because we don’t lie to ourselves about what blacks believe. Many blacks distrust scientific experts, support racial nationalists like Louis Farrakhan, and have no special love for Israel. Half of them have a positive view of the Nation of Islam. Many blacks also believe fantastic conspiracy theories that make QAnon seem sober and realistic.

CPAC organizers probably don’t know this. Thus, in their desperation to find black speakers, they invited Marshall Daniels, aka Pharaoh Aten, aka “Young Pharaoh.” CPAC put him on the program as a “Philosopher, Scholar, Musician.” Why invite Young Pharaoh? I suspect it was because he has spoken about why the Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan. He also sued Alphabet (Google) for violating his right free speech. Young Pharaoh considers himself a teacher, and has an online quasi-university.

(Credit Image: © SMG via ZUMA Wire)

The title of the late Jerome Tuccille’s book about libertarianism was called It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand. For conservatives, the same could be said of Rush Limbaugh. Neocon or paleo, white advocate or “movement conservative,” Christian or agnostic, capitalist or protectionist, it’s hard to find anyone on the Right who didn’t spend some time listening to the EIB Network.

I began listening in high school. No one told me about Rush Limbaugh. I wasn’t politically active. I just found him scanning the stations, as I imagine most others did.

Rush (I can’t help calling him “Rush”) was always on in the background during my first job in the conservative movement. Later, I’d go to work for the man who helped write his second book, See, I Told You So. For more than a decade in “the movement,” someone would email me at least one Limbaugh clip a week. These people would have wildly divergent views, but they all listened to him. I never thought about it at the time, but Rush Limbaugh shaped the ideological sphere that I worked in. Without him, no conservative movement, and without a conservative movement, no me — or those like me.

However, I never read Rush’s books, I never considered myself a “dittohead,” I wasn’t a dutiful listener, I never called in, and I didn’t even know Rush Limbaugh had a TV show until, for some reason, I read Al Franken’s subtly titled Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations. But he was just always there. For those who truly were fans, it must seem as though a planet has vanished.

When I heard he had died, I was astonished that it actually hurt — as if I knew the man. Rush had the skilled host’s ability to forge a real connection with his listeners. It felt like I knew him. He was the soundtrack for a young adulthood spent in conservatism. Older conservatives must feel this more intensely.

Robert Hampton accurately notes that Rush Limbaugh was the rare figure who could unite most of the Right. We can tie ourselves into ideological knots trying to explain this, but I think his secret was simple. He really had “talent on loan from God.”

It wasn’t about ideology. His ability to inform and entertain was why, during any long drive between the hours of noon and three, I’d find myself desperately searching for whatever station was carrying Rush. He had to be there somewhere. He’d make a road trip bearable.

Radio is hard work, and Rush Limbaugh was a master with a voice made for it. He somehow managed to use brutal humor with just enough irony that he didn’t sound angry. He sounded like he was having a good time, and therefore, listening to him was a good time.

You truly appreciated his artistry if you tried the competition. When Al Franken tried to start liberal talk radio with “Air America,” it was embarrassing. The message was awful, of course, but that wasn’t the problem. It was the dead air, awkward pauses, and lack of preparation. Bad radio, just like bad conversation, is painful to sit through.

Credit Image: © Mariela Lombard/ZUMA Press

But it wasn’t just talent. Radio seemed to come so easily to Rush because he clearly worked hard for every program. That in itself is a lesson for success no matter what your calling.

Still, we have to ask two questions: What did Rush Limbaugh do with his incredible power and what will happen to the conservative movement now?

On race, Rush Limbaugh went about as far as you can go and stay on the air. I recall several attempts to get him kicked off or go after his advertisers because of “offensive” comments. He always survived. It wasn’t just because his assistant “Bo Snerdley” (James Golden) was black, but because Limbaugh had a way of talking about racial differences that was politically incorrect but dodged the core issue.

Rush would cover racial double standards, crime, drugs, and immigration (the last, far too late in his career), but would rarely talk about race explicitly. Part of his mastery was an ability to shift a conversation into “safe” territory after a dangerous beginning. He knew the limits. That’s a gift, but also a failing. What’s the point of having a platform if you won’t use it for something important?

What kept Rush Limbaugh from being truly mainstream was pointing out that the media were rooting for a black NFL quarterback. In 2003, he lost his job as a commentator at ESPN after he said black quarterback Donovan McNabb wasn’t that great. Now, journalists regularly tell us that Colin Kaepernick, who isn’t nearly as good as Donovan McNabb, should be on the field as a kind of moral duty. Some even compare the thoroughly mediocre Mr. Kaepernick to Tom Brady, arguably the greatest NFL player ever. If anything, Rush’s observations and the reaction to them were prophetic.

Oct 2, 2003; Philadelphia, PA; Hannah Sassaman with the Prometheus Radio Project protests against Rush Limbaugh outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center where Limbaugh was the keynote speaker for the National Association of Broadcasters. (Credit Image: © Alejandro A. Alvarez / Philadelphia Daily News / ZUMAPRESS.com)

Despite his timidity on race, Rush Limbaugh drove people our way, especially in his later years. When, during the 2016 campaign, he read a Sam Francis essay on the air, it was like a gear shift for the movement. I felt goosebumps as I wrote a news story about Rush reading Sam Francis. Suddenly, this wasn’t “conservatism” anymore; we were “nationalists.” I can’t imagine someone like Sean Hannity making that shift.

But what did he accomplish? He helped create conservative media and a “movement,” but that movement didn’t accomplish much. Peter Brimelow argues that Rush was largely silent on immigration at a time when it could have made a difference. Rush connected with the American working man, but he told them to vote for the party of neoliberal economics, foreign wars, and faux populism. He was a safety valve, taking the justified anger of American whites and wasting it on unimportant battles.

There was the occasional offensive comment or culture war skirmish, but Rush Limbaugh never explained to listeners that the real issue is race. This is ironic because he lost his job at ESPN because of the race taboo. I suspect he really wanted to be “mainstream.” He made it and then lost it; maybe this cowed him.

Most Western media call Russian dissident Alexei Navalny a hero. Mr. Navalny is now in a Russian prison, and our most prestigious newspapers are cheering his anti-Putin crusade. These are official editorial statements from leading publications.

• “The Times view on Alexei Navalny’s bravery: Russian Hero,” The Times, December 23, 2020
• “The Extraordinary Courage of Aleksei Navalny,” New York Times, January 17, 2021
• “Navalny’s fiery indictment of the ‘small man in a bunker’ could rattle Putin’s autocracy,” Washington Post, February 2, 2021
• “The Guardian view on Alexei Navalny: such bravery needs backing,” The Guardian, January 18, 2021
• “Europe Must Stand With Navalny,” Bloomberg, February 4, 2021

However, what’s most remarkable about the media campaign is its hypocrisy. It’s doubtful Alexei Navalny would be a hero — maybe not even a free man — in the “Free World.”

In 2007 Mr. Navalny made a video that compared people from the Caucasus to insects. To fight “infestation,” Mr. Navalny recommended not a “fly swatter,” but a handgun.

Mr. Navalny supported nationalist marches in the past (such as the 2006 “Russian March.”) He has called for stopping subsidies to the North Caucasus republics. The New York Times reported that he had spoken alongside “neo-Nazis and skinheads.” He’s called immigration far more important than Russia’s conflict with Ukraine.

Even on foreign policy — the reason the West gives for opposing Russia — he’s no Euro-toady. “Crimea is ours,” he said in 2014. He would hold another referendum in the territory to determine whether Crimea belongs to Ukraine or Russia, but he also said that he doesn’t see Crimea returning to Ukraine in the “foreseeable future.”

Mr. Navalny might be a more “nationalist” leader than Mr. Putin. He wants to control immigration, cut loose non-Russians from the Russian Federation, allow firearm ownership, and promote free speech. In the West, media demonize men who talk like that.

Whether Mr. Navalny would act like a nationalist in power is another question. What would probably happen is what happened to Ukraine after the “Maidan Revolution.” (That was a real insurrection. In 2014, Ukrainian protesters overthrew the pro-Russian government in Kiev. Democrats pretend that the tragic farce at the Capitol was an insurrection.)

Right-wing nationalists led the fight against Russia in Ukraine. One group was Right Sector, which saw the Maidan as just the first step towards a greater “European Reconquista” of the whole continent. Nationalists from around the world fought in the Azov Battalion, a once quasi-independent militia active in the fratricidal conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

June 23, 2014 – Ukraine – Volunteers who have joined the Ukrainian government’s army battalion Azov to take part in the military operation in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions take oath of allegiance in central Kiev. (Credit Image: © Zurab Dzhavakhadze / ITAR-TASS / ZUMAPRESS.com)

The nationalist Right is not in power in Ukraine today. The president is a pro-EU former comedian. The Biden Administration is expected to give more aid to Ukraine than Barack Obama did, including lethal weapons. In response, Russia could move to annex eastern Ukraine. That could start another white civil war, which would benefit no one except our opponents. Washington and Brussels would exploit Ukrainian and pro-white patriotism to serve their own interests.

I am not convinced Russia is fundamentally different. I’ve been to the Donbass People’s Republic. A pro-Russian team took me around some of the areas that suffered during the conflict in 2015. I knew it was a propaganda tour, but what was most surprising was that Russian propaganda is essentially no different from the West’s.

Paramilitaries told me they were fighting “Nazis” and “fascists.” They described marginal elements in the Ukrainian government (such as the Azov Battalion) as sinister threats. Barack Obama’s America was something akin to the Fourth Reich. Soldiers in the field really believed they were fighting the reincarnation of the SS, not surprising given the ongoing celebration of the USSR’s victory in the Great Patriotic War. I then came home to a country where a once-serious magazine, The Atlantic, was claiming that Russia heads an “Alt-Right International” that is more effective than the Comintern.

Feb. 2, 2015 – A funeral for an Azov Battalion soldier in Independence Square in Kiev. The soldier was killed while fighting in Eastern Ukraine. (Credit Image: © Igor Golovniov / ZUMA Wire)

The truth is that both countries act like Republicans and Democrats in the United States, each claiming their opponents are the “real racist.” Still, I hope Donbass and eastern Ukraine remain free of the “Western” orbit. “Our” leaders are the greatest threats whites face. The liberal world order sustained by American power might liberate Ukraine from Russian domination, but it would then make sure that the “last bastion of whiteness” would be no more.

National leaders always fight over economic and territorial interests. However, in modern democracies, leaders drape these squalid fights in moralistic and idealistic terms. Thus, we have Western media telling us Mr. Navalny is a freedom fighter — so long as he stays in Russia.

The New York Times is hostile to free speech. Last year, it published a column with the title “Free Speech is Killing Us.” Nor is the Times friendly to whites. Onetime editorial board member Sarah Jeong complained — among many other things — about “dumbass f**king white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.” You get used to “The Grey Lady’s” quirks, but even I was shocked when she toyed with the idea of an official government “Reality Czar” to tell us what’s true and what’s not.

Apparently, too many Americans believe the wrong things. The Times worries that about 40 percent of Americans reportedly believe the “baseless theory that Covid-19 was manufactured in a Chinese lab.” Baseless? The Associated Press reports that China is restricting information, and last month, the Chinese stopped World Health Organization officials from entering the country. New York magazine discussed the possibility of a “lab leak” a few weeks ago.

Several “experts” explained to the Times how to protect us from “misinformation:” change social media algorithms so “civil rights lawyers” can tune them, use “de-escalation” (really re-education programs) against members of “extremist groups,” and apply a “comprehensive threat assessment” against “white supremacist groups and far right militias.”

These “experts” — mostly academics — don’t necessarily want a law that would let the government designate domestic terrorist groups because it might “end up harming religious and ethnic minorities.”

Even the author calls the idea of a Reality Czar “a little dystopian.” The czar would work with tech companies to manage content. It would be government censorship with a middleman. If the greatest philosophers still struggle with what is true and what’s not, I certainly don’t trust journalists and federal agents.

Perhaps the Times is right, and people can’t be trusted to make up their own minds. If that’s so, we should abolish voting. It’s dangerous if citizens can’t even be trusted to read the newspaper. If we need a “reality czar,” it would be simpler to scrap the democratic pretense and have a real Czar.

(Credit Image: © Yegor Aleyev/TASS via ZUMA Press)

A few years ago, the late Christopher Hitchens bravely defended free speech in Canada, where it no longer exists. The law, he said, required that someone decide what people could and could not see. “To hell with that law,” he said. He asked if anyone in the audience thought he needed to be sheltered from books. No one did. Many people want to deplatform opponents, but no one wants to imprison his own mind. Could Hitchens give that speech today?

We need free speech not just because we value an abstract right. We need it because we are right and they are wrong on the most important issue in the world. The Regime is repressing white advocates. The justification is that this prevents violence. However, white nationalist terrorism is barely worth mentioning. The ADL’s report on “extremist terrorism” was mostly fabrication and dishonesty, linking “white racism” to cases that had nothing to do with it.

Some accuse Donald Trump and white advocates of using media to encourage “long wolves” to commit attacks. This assumes these terrorists can understand coded attack orders, but let’s accept the argument. Mass media and Big Tech companies have far larger platforms than we do, and all but unanimously support Black Lives Matter. What have we seen?

• Riots and destruction.
• A 30 percent increase in the murder rate.
• Justifications of violence from movement leaders.
• Horrifying crimes against white children including Cannon Hinnant and Tori Rose Smith.
• Assaults on the police and, in at least one case, on white people in general because a black suspect was radicalized by watching police shootings online.

American Renaissance has a small platform, and the most powerful people in the world — the ones who control American technology companies — are trying to make it even smaller. Black Lives Matter gets media support and massive funding from corporate America. Who is inciting violence? Who has the power to do it?

It’s far more likely that the media incite black-on-white crime than that white advocates incite white-on-black crime. What we see is precisely what you would expect when blacks are taught to hate whites. Any given black person is 48 times more likely to attack a white person than the other way around. The New York Times will never tell you that, though in 2019 it wrote more than 70 stories about Emmett Till.

Blacks have much higher crime rates than whites and the government gives them privileges in jobs, education, and, increasingly, in criminal justice. However, the powerful tell us we are in a white supremacist society plagued by systemic racism.

(Credit Image: © Kevin Dietsch/CNP via ZUMA Wire)

The Regime on the Potomac has begun its campaign of repression. Media hysterics about “insurrectionists” and a vague Department of Homeland security bulletin about terrorism created an artificial crisis. Figures in the new Administration are eager to use state power against “racists,” even while they tolerate real crime. Add to this the concepts of “restorative justice” and “transitive justice” and we get the perfect recipe for anarcho-tyranny.

The “Ricky Vaughn” case is a warning. Douglass Mackey (his real name), now 31, was one of the 2016 campaign’s most effective pro-Trump Twitter accounts. On January 27, the Justice Department announced it arrested him for “conspiring with others in advance of the 2016 Presidential Election to use various social media platforms to disseminate misinformation designed to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.” The Department of Justice arrested Ricky Vaughn for posting memes five years ago.

Ricky Vaughn’s Twitter avatar

The complaint is another tragicomic product of a collapsing system. It alleges that Mr. Mackey and his followers tweeted pictures of celebrities “in a manner that falsely suggested that the celebrities were supporting Candidate 2’s [Donald Trump’s] candidacy.” It also says that a small group used a #DraftOurDaughters hashtag, “which suggested that the Candidate [Hillary Clinton] would provoke armed conflict and draft women to fight the resulting wars.” Are we supposed to believe that Democrats never say Republicans will do awful things if they gain power? And that saying those things is somehow not legal?

The most serious allegation is that “Ricky Vaughn” and “co-conspirators” told people they could vote by text message. About 4,900 people texted the supposed “voting” number — whether they really thought they were voting or not. Here’s a liberal “comedienne” doing something similar. Is this a crime?

Hey 🇺🇸Trump Supporters🇺🇸! Skip poll lines at #Election2016 and TEXT in your vote! Text votes are legit. Or vote tomorrow on Super Wednesday! pic.twitter.com/ES34HV0yad

— Kristina Wong ❄️ (@mskristinawong) November 8, 2016

Despite the accusation in the complaint, this did not deprive anyone of the vote. At worst, it convinced foolish people that they had voted “by text.”

This was Donald Trump, Jr’s reaction:

I’m not sure whether it’s hilarious or scary as hell that they’re essentially indicting someone making Memes. https://t.co/JiwYmz9Pm2

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 27, 2021

Hilarious? I expect Donald Trump Jr. and his dad won’t find it “hilarious” if prosecutors cook up indictments for them for financial crimes.

The double standards are clear. The FBI springs into action over the “Capitol Insurrection” after failing to pay attention to BLM riots and a skyrocketing homicide rate. Prosecutors will charge hundreds of people for the Capitol riot, unlike their lenient treatment of last year’s rioters, looters, and arsonists.

No one should have barged into the Capitol. We must be very cautious about tactics and “optics.” However, what happened in Washington was far less serious than burning down a police precinct. I’m far angrier about the destruction of ordinary Americans’ businesses than people wandering around Congress. If we’re supposed to believe putting your feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk is sedition, what was it when leftist seized control of part of an American city and flouted state authority? What will the FBI do when it happens again? Kneel?

San Francisco: Police Officers kneel at Mission Police Station on June 3, 2020 after the death of George Floyd. (Credit Image: © imageSPACE via ZUMA Wire)

White advocates have good reason to worry. Homeland Security issued a “National Terrorism Advisory (NTAS) Bulletin” the same day the DOJ announced charges against “Ricky Vaughn.” DHS warned of a “heightened threat environment across the United States that is likely to persist over the coming weeks.” The rationale?

DHS does not have any information to indicate a specific, credible plot; [emphasis added] however, violent riots have continued in recent days and we remain concerned that individuals frustrated with the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances and ideological causes fueled by false narratives [emphasis added], could continue to mobilize a broad range of ideologically-motivated actors to incite or commit violence.

This comes just days after the government mustered 25,000 Guardsmen to fight off an imaginary white supremacist army. Mobs that were supposedly going to swarm state capitols last month never appeared either.

And when did it become the DHS’s job to tell us which are the “false narratives?” Will the government issue an official American history? One of President Biden’s first acts was to dismantle President Trump’s “1776 Commission” to promote “patriotic education.” It was a “cornball” effort to build a colorblind civic nationalist identity around vague ideas, but the 1776 Commission at least tried to give Americans something to unite around. Joe Biden is sowing division.